Dave Sabol

I decided to write about the past two days at the same time because honestly they were more about work than anything else and since I was doing the same thing two posts seems rather redundant. We kicked off our Leadership meeting early Saturday morning and my job was to run a demonstration table showing off our online learning offering. This is not the first event like this where I have done the same thing, but the people are always new and my presence seems to generate a lot of buzz and interest.

It’s tough to talk about something as generic as showing people how to use the Learning Management System and how they will benefit from using it with any type of excitement only because it’s really a sales pitch that I make to them and I back it up by showing them everything that the system has to offer. This isn’t to say that I am not passionate about my job or the program that I am responsible for, because I am, but my passion comes out in the presentation rather than in my writing. Suffice it to say, I had a good deal of traffic, perhaps more that I expected and I had a chance to meet people from all parts of the region. That was probably the most exciting part for me.

It’s hard to believe that something as common place in the states as online learning is still really in it’s infancy in many other parts of the world. It’s even more startling that the usage rate of my system is so low. However, when you get out into the field and start talking to your users you quickly learn that the low usage can be attributed to a lack of awareness, time constraints and sometimes even fear and confusion. It’s always good to have that understanding and it allows me to not only refine our program in response to these issues, but it also helps me sell the program more effectively when I know what the objections are.

As a bit of a side note, part way through my first day of doing demonstrations my system stopped working. Now had our choice of vendors been a small player or one who didn’t have a supposedly outstanding reputation in the marketplace, I wouldn’t have been surprised. However, when our system went down without so much as an email advising us that it would and at such an inopportune moment, I was pretty pissed off. I have been working with these types of systems for quite some time and one of the benefits to using a vendor to provide, host and suppor the technology is the comfort level you have knowing that there is a guaranteed level of reliability. I guess not in this case. I spent a few hours trying to figure out the problem and even tried reaching the vendor’s help website only to find that that was down too. Finally, I was able to reach them over the phone where I found out that it was a planned outtage and that I had been notified the week prior. The suspicious part about that was the fact that I never received any such communication nor did my system admin.

This is just another in a long string of issues I am having with my technology provider and is the last straw for me. I had planned on moving to another vendor later this year anyway, but this definitely gives me reason to fast-track the idea.

Since, I couldn’t do my demonstrations, I packed up my station and turned my attention to supporting the overall event. I was really frustrated and really didn’t want to talk with anyone, fortunately for me, the event was almost finished for the day and there was little to do. The day concluded with a nice cocktail reception with live music at one of the hotel’s restaurants (JJ’s), so I was able to unwind a bit. After the reception myself and a colleague joined our manager in her room, ordered Pizza and simply chatted the rest of the evening away.

Today (Sunday) was largely a repeat of Saturday with a few minor differences. First, my system was finally working, although the laptops that the hotel provided for us to use to give the demonstrations were not…luckily I had my laptop and could simply use that instead. In addition, I was giving a presentation on the status of our E-Learning initiative. Our meetings are a combination of general sessions where all attendees are present, break-out sessions where smaller groups gather and educational tracks where individuals present to smaller groups of folks. So as part of my participation in this event, I was asked to present.

Having done a number of presentations in the past and being a classroom teacher for a while, I love being up in front of an audience, but admittedly, I still get nervous. The one thing I had on my side was the fact that I had prepared well and am quite passionate about my topic. So while most of my day was spent doing demonstrations, answering questions, and helping users with some of their issues, my mind was obviously focused on the presentation. I was in the unenviable position of presenting in the final slot of the day against two other really good topics, so I was a bit concerned at the number of attendees that I would have. As luck would have it, I ended up having a very good turn out.

Sometimes no matter how well you prepare for a presentation, when you allow it to be interactive (i.e. rolling question and answer as part of the presentation) you can get bogged down or lose the interest or control of the audience). I decided to give it a shot despite the challenges associated with this type of approach and am quite thankful that I did. In the end, it was a pretty fast-paced but indepth presentation where a lot of information was exchanged and a lot of great questions were asked and answered. In all honesty, I was really blown away that the hour that I had to present went as quickly as it did but from the informal feedback I received my presentation was very well receieved. I am sure I made some mistakes and didn’t meet everyones needs, as is the case when you are presenting to folks from around the world who don’t always speak English as their first language, but overall I feel very good about it. I can’t wait to see my official evaluation so I really take my presentation to the next level the next time I give it.

After my presentation was complete, my day was pretty much finished except for atteneding a closing session and helping break down some of the event site. By this point in the day after going full throttle for over 10 hours, I was pretty exhausted. But even though the formal part of our two-day conference was completed, we still had a offsite cocktail hour for all attendees.

About a half-hour after the event closed, all of the attendees and our staff boarded 4 large tour buses for short ride to the Lumiere restaurant which is located at the base of the International Finance Center (the tallest building in Hong Kong) for a reception. I wasn’t really into the whole idea of “being on my game” for another few hours, but again, when it’s your department and organization hosting the event, you don’t have a lot of say in what you do and don’t do.

Despite my lack of energy and enthusiasm, I am really glad I went because I had a chance to see a few people that I wanted to catch up with and had a few really great conversations. The time seemed to fly right by so I guess you could say my hesitation was a bit unfounded. That was really the last formal commitment I had so as the reception wound down, I felt an air of relaxation come over me. After a few really hard days of work and play, I could finally relax a bit.

Some of our staff decided to head out for dinner as a team and we ended up at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse. I could go on and on about how good the food and company was, but lets just say it was a fitting end to an outstanding few days. Tomorrow night I depart Hong Kong and head home and for as much fun it is to see places you have never seen before and meet people you may have spoken to but never formally met, there is nothing as comforting as the idea of coming home to your own bed and the company of your loving family.

I do have some time during the day tomorrow that I can use however I see fit and I hope to be able to get out and pick up a few last minute gifts, other than that, my time will be spent unwinding and packing.